


I'd Rather Be Eaten By a Sand-Roach (than make a pit stop in Desert Bluffs)

by OmoYasha



Series: Omovember 2020 [1]
Category: Welcome to Night Vale
Genre: M/M, Omorashi, Road Trips, Typical Night Vale Weirdness
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-03
Updated: 2020-11-03
Packaged: 2021-03-08 22:53:32
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,016
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27364576
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/OmoYasha/pseuds/OmoYasha
Summary: Omovember Day 2: Inconvenient locationThere are all kinds of risks to stopping a car for a pit stop in the Night Vale desert.  But when the other option is pulling over in Desert Bluffs, Cecil would rather take his chances.
Relationships: Carlos/Cecil Palmer
Series: Omovember 2020 [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1998742
Comments: 6
Kudos: 34





	I'd Rather Be Eaten By a Sand-Roach (than make a pit stop in Desert Bluffs)

“Cecil, bunny, we are in the car.”

“Yes? And?”

“The car which I am currently driving at seventy miles per hour down a deserted highway in the middle of nowhere, in a desert which is very likely full of disturbing quantities of radiation and giant centipedes and insane barbers. That car.”

“Yeeesss?” Cecil drawled out the word in that very distinctive tone which typically indicated he’d just been called out on something incorrect, stupid, or embarrassing that he had just said or done.

“And _now_ is when you mention that you need to pee?”

Cecil cleared his throat awkwardly.

“Well…”

“You didn’t think it would be a good idea to bring this up in town? Where we have an apartment with our own, almost-private bathroom that barely even has snakes?”

Carlos waited.

Cecil did not say anything.

After a long moment, the scientist risked a glance at his husband. Cecil was chewing on his bottom lip. Past experience had taught Carlos that this was something Cecil did when he was nervous, but he couldn’t think of _why_ Cecil would be nervous now. Which probably meant…

“Cecil, _why_ didn’t you say something earlier? We only left Night Vale – “ He checked the clock. “- thirty-seven minutes ago, unless time stopped working again.”

He kept his eyes on the road, knowing that Cecil might take a moment to answer. The man could chatter like there’s no tomorrow when he felt like it, but sometimes – especially when the topic was sensitive, or personal – he liked to take time to plan out his words. Whether he was trying to plan for diplomacy, or for dramatic effect, Carlos had yet to figure out.

“My dear Carlos,” he began, eventually.

“You have been _thrilled_ about this visit to your mother for _months_.” He paused.

“I’m sure you remember all of that paperwork we were obliged to fill out, don’t you?”

Barring magic or mind-altering substances – neither of which were entirely impossible in Night Vale – there was no way Carlos was forgetting the metaphorical mountain of forms and petitions (and, worryingly, documents full of bizarre, writhing sigils, which Cecil assured him were contracts) any time soon. 

Cecil had been obliged to write _another_ excruciatingly detailed vacation request essay, and between them, they’d had to turn in over two dozen forms to city hall. It was hard enough answering the kind of questions the city saw fit to ask. Answering them at length, with an eyeliner brush dipped in pomegranate juice because your pens had been confiscated _again_ was an especially unforgettable experience.

He shuddered.

“Yes, I remember.”

“And most of that was for the permit they gave us allowing me to travel outside the greater Night Vale area. Which is invalid and spontaneously combustible if not used to exit the city limits between 8:56 a.m. and 9:42 a.m. on the first Friday after the autumn equinox.”

Carlos thought about that. Cecil had told him that the permit – which was written in Sumerian – was very specific about time, and that they should try to be out of the city between nine and nine-thirty. He hadn’t realized _how_ specific.

With typical Night Vale delays, and Cecil’s tendency to stop and talk with absolutely everyone he passed on the street, and his own distractibility, they hadn’t even left the house until 9:37.

All of a sudden, the situation made a lot more logical sense.

“Oh. So you knew it was going to be an issue, but you didn’t say anything because you were worried we’d be late, and need to reschedule?”

“We were on schedule to leave town at 9:41, Carlos. And sadly, reliably taking bathroom breaks in under thirty seconds is not among my many talents.”

It was a very sweet thing for Cecil to think of. It was true, Carlos _had_ been looking forward to visiting his family – to taking his _husband_ to meet his family – for the first time since he’d moved to Night Vale, whenever that was. And apparently Cecil cared enough about _Carlos_ caring – even though he himself was nervous about leaving the desert for the first time since college – to stay straight faced and forgo the dramatics just so that neither the inconvenient need nor Carlos’s worry would make them late.

But unfortunately, it did nothing to change the current predicament.

“Aww, honey, that’s sweet.”

Out of the corner of his eye, he caught a flash of movement as Cecil squirmed.

“…but we’re still in a desert full scientifically improbable phenomena and potentially radio show host consuming creatures. And even though the road signs keep changing, they _all_ said there’s not a gas station for at least fifty miles. Not unless we take the turn off for Desert Bluffs.”

“On second thought, I am one hundred percent fine, barely need to go at all really, and this is certainly not urgent in any way.” Cecil blurted immediately in response to the town’s name, the strain in his voice making the lie blatantly obvious.

Carlos couldn’t blame him.

“I can’t say I’m in favor of that option either, even if I _have_ always wondered how they – “ he cut himself off, feeling Cecil’s scowl even without looking.

“Right. I mean, um, scientific curiosity aside, Desert Bluffs is extremely disturbing, and not at all an ideal place to pull over. Or in fact, even to enter.”

They were both quiet for a few minutes – or at least, Carlos was quiet, and Cecil was quiet _for Cecil_ , limiting himself to soft humming and tapping his fingers on the window.

They exchanged a glance when the car approached the deceptively cheerful sign announcing “Desert Bluffs, next exit!” accompanied by a smiley face with far too many teeth.

Cecil frantically shook his head. Carlos nodded.

By unspoken agreement, they did not take the turn-off for Desert Bluffs.

No bathroom emergency could possibly be desperate enough to justify _that_ – personally, Carlos would rather take his chances in Radon Canyon than Desert Bluffs, and he was certain it was an attitude that was emphatically shared by his husband.

Cecil made it about five minutes past the exit – which to be honest, was about 4.3 minutes longer than Carlos expected – before his composure cracked.

“Nngggg… I have to go so bad!” He bounced in his seat in a way which somehow managed to be distracting even without looking in his direction.

Carlos had spent enough time with Cecil, by now, that he could _mostly_ sort out his general theatrics from the moments when he was performatively expressing a genuinely intense emotion.

Right now, Cecil wasn’t _quite_ over the top enough to be enjoying complaining for its own sake… which meant he probably really _was_ about as desperate as he was making it sound. One of them wetting themselves in the car seemed like an inauspicious start to their vacation, so he cleared his throat.

“Maybe we could pull over after all? Even with the sand roach infestations, it shouldn’t be _too_ dangerous as long as you stay near the car and go by the tires?”

Cecil made a face.

“Eugh, no! That’s disgusting.”

Carlos shrugged, accepting the answer, until something else occurred to him.

“Hang on, weren’t you a boy scout? Isn’t the whole point of that to teach kids to be responsible citizens who are comfortable doing outdoor activities?”

He knew, even as he asked it, that the response was likely going to be something odd and uniquely Night Valean, but even after all this time living in town, he was still deeply curious about its oddities. Curious was, after all, one of the many things a good scientist was. So in the spirit of curiosity, he asked anyways.

“What? No. The point of boy scouts is teaching children to find the pure, community minded spirit within themselves. And then to extract it, make appropriate offerings to the creatures possessing them, and finally learn to banish them with the ‘Junior Exorcist Beginner’s Guide’. That and cryptid sightings.”

He paused.

“It’s a lot like girl scouts, really. But sliiiightly less cool.”

“Huh. Interesting.”

So going outside was, at least for the moment, off the table then.

“It’s fine, Carlos. I’ll just wait.”

The barren, sandy landscape sped past them, as Cecil fidgeted restlessly, thighs pressed together and tapping his foot.

It was annoying.

Out of respect for the current situation, Carlos chose not to point this out.

When Cecil started whining under his breath – actual, literal whining, like a puppy that needed to go out, rather than whiny complaining – he felt obliged to offer a small amount of reality checking.

“Ceec, you… don’t seem like you’ll be okay waiting another forty miles to stop.”

Cecil was, as a rule, exceptionally talented at convincing people – himself included – that the facts in front of them somehow, no matter how improbably, supported his own preferred version of reality. Since they lived in Night Vale, most of the time this was either a useful adaptive mechanism, or an extremely in-demand job skill.

Carlos’s brain simply did not have quite good enough suspension to roll with the tilts and changes to reality that Cecil happily accommodated daily – he had learned, over the years, that struggling to fully understand all the twists and turns of every day life was simply not feasible. He and Cecil coexisted very well this way – they each noticed the bits of reality solidly in the other’s blind spot. But sometimes, Cecil’s conviction in his own ideas edged from impressively faithful into downright delusional. And when it became problematic – although he didn’t like to argue – Carlos felt somewhat obliged to point it out.

Not that it usually helped.

Cecil shook his head stubbornly, huffing in irritation.

“I’m _fine_.” He insisted. “Forty miles is less than an hour, isn’t it? I don’t need to stop out here in the _open_ , okay? I’m not that desperate!

“Mmm.”

Carlos didn’t bother arguing; he felt a bit bad for his husband, but they had exhausted all of the ideas he could currently think of. Hopefully, things would work out alright.

Apparently, he didn’t need to argue – Cecil did that perfectly well by himself. Because maybe fifteen minutes later, Cecil gasped sharply.

“Cecil?”

“Pull over!”

“Are you sure-“

“Yes! I changed my mind! Please pull over, _now._ I need to – _now, please!”_

It was not a good sign when Cecil – _Cecil –_ had trouble talking coherently. A glance over to the passenger seat showed him hunched over, wincing.

Carlos pulled over, and hoped the reports of man-eating sand-roaches were, for once, exaggerated (or at least, that any such creatures were in a different part of the desert this morning).

Cecil was scrambling out the door almost before the car stopped moving, tripping over himself to get out.

He did in fact, stay by the car – whether out of self-preservation, or because he had to go too badly to move further.

Though Carlos didn’t deliberately watch – mostly focused on keeping an eye out to make sure nothing snuck up to eat his husband mid-piss – he heard the noise of a zipper, and the hiss and patter of liquid forcefully hitting the ground. Cecil sighed in relief.

“Cecil, I don’t mean to hurry you but, um. There’s something moving out there and it’s freaking me out a little?”

There was nothing like the ominous, instinctive feeling of danger to spice up a pit stop. Cecil finished up and got back in the car so fast it seemed like it had to break some kind of record, and once the door was safely closed, Carlos smiled at him as he fished out the hand sanitizer they kept in the glove box.

“Feeling better?”

Cecil laughed.

“Very much so.”

Carlos kissed him, and laughed when Cecil blushed – it never stopped being cute that the same man who would happily ramble to the entire town about playing strip Uno got so flustered when Carlos did something as simple as giving him an unanticipated kiss.

He started the car again, both of them much less stressed. 

Now, if only the rest of the trip could continue this smoothly…

**Author's Note:**

> My first omovember fic! Flimsy plot, zero editing, vaguely placed in the canon timeline - sounds perfect!
> 
> I welcome all kinds of comments and reviews. I am a feedback vampire, and they give me life!
> 
> find me on tumblr if you like at omoyasha.tumblr.com


End file.
